The developer path

1. Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code && claude

2. Torta

npm install -g torta-ai

torta-ai is the installable alias for torta-app, which carries the CLI, the board and the engine. Both are published at the same version.

3. Start it

torta start

With no workspace in the folder, torta start serves the setup wizard and rolls into the board of the workspace it creates. Pointed at a workspace, it opens that board:

torta start ~/Documents/projects/my-project

torta start serves 127.0.0.1 only, on port 5599 by default, and opens your browser. It also runs the engine, which starts an agent when work you approved arrives. Ctrl-C stops the board, the engine and every pane.

Useful flags:

--port <n> to move off 5599.
--no-open to skip opening a browser.
--no-engine for a board with nothing behind it.
--runner stub|sdk|pty|auto to pick how sessions run. The default is auto.

The full list is in the CLI reference.

4. Answer the questions

Page one is the fork: something new, or a folder I already have. New is five questions after it, then a summary: who you are, the project name, where it lives, who works on it, and what you are building. Seven pages.

The location comes filled in as ~/Documents/projects/<your-project-name>. Type over it, or press choose project path and pick a folder. Torta creates the folder, so pick a place that does not have one.

Adopting inserts two pages after the location and drops the build question, for eight in all: what torta found in the folder, and who owns each project in it. See Already have a project below.

Nothing is written to disk until you press create workspace.

5. Say what you want built

The wizard rolls into the board with the terminal panel open on the agent that takes requests. It asks what you want built, then interviews you for three things: what it should do, why it matters, and the one number that settles whether it worked. It writes the ticket through the same ticket.py every other ticket goes through, and it comes back to you in needs you for approval.

The queues start empty. There is no ticket until you have asked for one.

Skip the browser

torta init asks the same five in the terminal, with no fork in front of them: the command you typed is already the answer. --yes takes the default for every question that has one. For no questions at all:

torta init my-project --ios --backend --preset solo

Platforms are opt-in. Turning one off removes its repo, its agent’s home, its wall and its queue.

Already have a project

If the code exists, do not create a second workspace beside it. Adopt it. Read the plan first, which writes nothing:

torta adopt ~/Documents/projects/my-app --dry-run

Then drop the flag to do it:

torta adopt ~/Documents/projects/my-app

That folder becomes the workspace root. A Claude Code session reads it and says which agent owns each project it finds, with a line saying why; each project then moves into the repository that owner keeps work in, carrying its own repository and history. --as <owner> answers for it instead, once per project. A project you decline with --as none is left exactly where it is, and so is one nobody could be worked out for. Nothing already in the folder is overwritten, and --undo puts it back exactly as it was.

Any stack, and the profile follows the code: a React app lands on the node profile, with walls granting that toolchain and a brief naming package.json. What the workspace builds follows from what was adopted, so there is nothing left to restate. The wizard offers the same door as its first question. See adopt a project.

Your first ticket covers what to do on the board.